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Drought declarations removed for 3 counties

Staff Report //June 13, 2019//

Drought declarations removed for 3 counties

Staff Report //June 13, 2019//

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Recent rainfall has resulted in the S.C. Drought Response Committee removing drought declarations for three S.C. counties while downgrading drought status for another 35.

The committee removed the drought declaration for Oconee, Pickens and Anderson counties, according to a news release from the S.C. Department of Natural Resources. The drought status remained at incipient in Greenville, Spartanburg, Cherokee, Union, York, Chester, Lancaster and Kershaw and improved from moderate to incipient in the remaining counties.

Incipient is the first level of drought, followed by moderate, severe and extreme. 

“We went from excessive heat to excessive rain in some areas,” said Hope Mizzell, S.C. state climatologist. “ … The eight-day rainfall totals were highly variable, ranging from only 1.34 inches at Fort Lawn to 16.46 inches in Bluffton.”

A Lexington monitoring station measured 11.22 inches from June 7-13, while one in Columbia measured 5.1 inches.

The recent precipitation, combined with higher humidity, has also reduced the number of wildfires statewide, the committee said, while some streamflows jumped from 10th-percentile flow to 90th-percentile in one week.

The committee said the rain came too late to same some dry-land corn, but soybean planting is resuming while cotton and peanut planting is wrapping up.

The committee will meet again in July.

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